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Seed Saving in a Time of Crisis

Learn how to save seeds from common vegetables such as beans, peas, lettuce, tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers. 94% of commercial varieties that were available 100 years ago are gone and the biodiversity that we have left will be stewarded by community members like you. Explore how seed saving can enrich your life, save you money, and preserve biodiversity. Help save heirlooms of the past and breed heirlooms of the future. Create more resilience in your life and community by saving seeds!

What's a Seed Lending Library?

A seed lending library is a place where you can borrow seeds for free. You may be asking, “How can you ‘borrow’ seeds?” The basic is idea is that you plant the seeds, let some go to seed, then return some of these next generation seeds for others to borrow. (Don’t worry. We don’t have fines if you don’t return seeds.)

We encourage home gardeners to save seeds from the "super easy" plants: tomatoes, lettuce, beans, and peas. Do not save seeds from plants in the "easy" or "difficult" drawer until you have more experience seed saving. Learn more about seed saving. ​Richmond Grows is a non-profit seed lending library located in the public library. We’re open whenever the public library is open. You do not need to have Richmond Public Library card to use the seed library, but we do ask people to watch our on-line orientation. We provide free classes on organic gardening and seed saving, and of course, you can also borrow books from the public library on these topics.

​Stories of SeedsHighlights from our Collection

Take a picture of a plant that you are saving seeds from. We want to hear your story of the plant you saved seeds from. Maybe let us know what dishes you made with it or share a favorite recipe using the plant. Each month we'd like to highlight something in our collection. You can submit your photos and a little write-up to RichmondGrows@gmail.com.

Envelopes - Grow Out Program

Return quality seed that is well labeled. Use our envelope labels (make a copy) or see if the variety you are growing already has a label pre-made on our Grow Out Program list. NOTE: Some plants readily cross pollinate, such as sunflowers, corn, and brassicas. If you are saving seeds from these plants and did not cage or hand-pollinate them, write "Crossed?" on the packet.

Help Us Grow Local Seed

Our intention is to grow more local seed for the benefit of the community. We're focusing on preserving varieties that have cultural significance or are rare or unusual while increasing food security and local resilience. What can you do to help?

Grow out seed - Never saved seeds before? We'll start you with "super easy" things you can save. Click on our ﻿Grow Out List﻿ plants and email us about what you'd like to grow. Pick ups of the seeds, seed saving instructions and return envelopes are at Richmond Grows.

Join East Bay Local Seeds - We're a group of individuals, seed librarians, public librarians and nonprofits working together to vision and create a network of local seed to be shared through and among seed libraries. Email us to get info about our next meeting.